b'20American Journal of Transportation ajot.comAJOTs Top Fifty North American 3PLs 2021 TOP 50 NORTH AMERICAN 3PL 20213PLsAdapting to the timesBy George Lauriat,AJOTWhatisa3PLaThirdPartynatingfromthefreightforwarder/Logisticsprovider? Its an acronymcustomhousebroker,NVOorIMC frequently used in logistics circles butbusinesseslikeYusen,Rogers& seldom defined. Its a sort of catchallBrown or BOC tend to be asset light expression for an intangible collectionwhile those which evolved from the of services that have become necessarytrucking sector tend to be asset heavy. to couple together and enable freightOfcourse,thereareplentyof3PLs movementsthroughanincreasinglythatdidntcomefromeithersector. complex supply chain. Many of theseTheintegrators,likeDHLFEDEX, services have been around a great dealand UPS are also asset heavy as are longer than modern containerizedcompanies like Ryder that evolved outshipping. A number of shipping ser- of the equipment leasing sector. Still, vices like freight forwarding and cus- there is a new generation of 3PLs that tomhouse brokerage are nearly as oldare emerging that were designed from as civilization itself. In some respects,thebottomuptofunctionas3PLs. the 3PL is just an evolutionary stepCompanieslikeXPOandFlexport forward, but in other ways the 3PL iswere designed to be 3PLs from their a completely new industry forged ininception. A few other 3PLs are spi-the fires of demanding times.noffs from other sectors (Jusda was aThe road that Mode Transportation took to becoming a 3PL shows how the need for freight Forthisreason,incompilinga(TOPcontinued on page 21) management systems has pushed the development of the sector. 3PLlistlikeourAJOTsTopFifty NorthAmerican3PLsitisworth noting that many are familiar names. The Top3PLswereoncerankedin other lists astop freight forward-ers,customhousebrokers,NVOs, LTL and/or FTL trucking companies, IMCs, integrators, and now, even the oceancarriershaveenteredthecat-egory. Added to this list of services oftraditionalsupplychainservice providers is a new and growing list of technology providers that are labeled as 3PLs or 4PLs. And now the ser-vice providers to the tech segment are sometimes being referred to as 5PLs. Not surprisingly, there is a little confusioninwhereallthesePLs actually fit in the logistics universe. Theeverwideningserviceshave morphedfromtheoriginalideaof simply moving an item of freight from A-to-Bintosomethingquiteelse. Relativelyrecently,B2B[Business-To-Business]applicationscreptinto themenuoflogisticsserviceswith theexpansionofSaaS[Softwareas a Service] from a localized software application to cloudware with its far reachingcomputerizedclout.Now, thenewlogisticsuniverseincludes themanufacturerandtheend-user (the consumer) and the services link-ingtheselogisticsextremesisfar more intricate than anything that has comebefore.Aggregatingglobal supply chain data is now part of the overarchingefforttointegrateBig Data into commercial activities irre-spective of sector.Theservicedesignsforend-to-end tracking and information capture havebecomegoalsuntothemselves withcommercialutilitywhatis moving off the shelvesranging far beyondtheactualfundamentalsof moving freight. In the current frame of reference for thelogistics indus-try, tech is less defined by whether a build is vertical or horizontal as there is almost amoeba like need for collab-oration with partners in all quadrants to maximize ROIs.Building more utility into logis-tics systems has become the mantra of the 3PL sector and what drives the expansion of 3PL services. s iZe ands haPe : M&aand3Pl sThe 3PL sector is loosely divided into asset heavy and asset light com-panies. 3PLs, especially those origi-'